With AIDS Awareness Week around the corner, it's ironic that a prominent
Saskatchewan gay rights activist died before he was to speak at a conference
in Saskatoon.

Doug Wilson died Saturday in Toronto of AIDS. He was 42.

Wilson is best remembered for a university campus battle in the mid-70s.
The sessional lecturer and graduate student in the college of education
at the University of Saskatchewan was restricted from supervision of practice
teachers in Saskatoon schools following his public admission of
homosexuality.

Since then, Wilson has been a strong advocate of human rights for gays and
lesbians, and for people with AIDS.

Wilson was also a publisher, poet, former director of the Saskatchewan
Association on Human Rights and editor of a literary journal in Toronto called
Rights.

He was diagnosed with AIDS during the last federal election campaign when
he ran for an NDP nomination in the Rosedale district of Toronto.

"His ground-breaking work has changed societal attitudes," said Bruce Garman,
president of AIDS Saskatoon.